Month: January 2016

Took a tour around Ocean Beach the other day to see just how the village has dug itself out after the huge deluge from El Nino storms.

And I found OB was quickly getting back to “normal” – whatever that is.

Sure, there were still sandbags against the doors of stores, there were a few piles of sand at the grassy parks, …

By Bob Dorn / San Diego Free Press

(Inspired by The Devil’s Dictionary, which Wikipedia says is “a satirical dictionary written by American journalist and author Ambrose Bierce. Originally published in 1906 as The Cynic’s Word Book, it features Bierce’s witty and often ironic spin on many common English words.”)

Three of the definitions here were written by Ambrose Bierce. Can you guess which ones?

A
Apocalyptician Elected, by god.

By Mic Porte

San Diego hosts many people. We advertise our world famous beaches, attractions and weather to the world. We invite people to come. We pay fancy advertising campaigns on the billboards of Times Square in New York City at New Year’s.

The police, fire-rescue, lifeguards and Coast Guard cannot patrol every inch of coastline, border, road, etc. It is a tribute to the Good Samaritans among us that there are not more tragedies along the coast, on the roads and in other public places.

By Shaun Gonzalez / Mojave Desert Blog

The revival of the housing market has renewed a perennial threat to desert wildlands – urban sprawl. Developers are considering plans for large new suburban developments across the southwest, years after such large developments mostly stalled when the housing industry began to crash in 2006.

At a time when most of our efforts have been focused on protecting public lands from industrial-scale development, urban sprawl underscores the need for local efforts to protect open space under private ownership.

By the Old OB Hippie

Having accompanied editordude to Sedona, Arizona to await the birth of his daughter’s own daughter, I ended up with enough time to take a number of side trips around this beautiful jewel of the west. These side runs allowed me to take in incredible sights and views, visit other towns in the region, and check out native people ruins. Some of these I’ll share with my OB-brethren and sisters.

If you don’t know where it is, Sedona is easily found about 130 miles due north from Phoenix …

Locals Clean-Up After El Nino Deluge

AND MUCH MORE INSIDE …

Here are some of the latest in the ever-evolving controversy over the City’s planned installation of 10 police surveillance cameras along OB’s waterfront.

CAPA Members Sound Off at City Council Comment Period in Effort to Get Zapf’s Attention

On Monday, January 11th, during the non-agenda comment period at the San Diego City Council meeting, several CAPA members made statements in opposition to the police cameras. The OB locals particularly aimed their statements at Councilwoman Lorie Zapf, in an effort to get her attention. Zapf has refused to meet with the group and snubbed her nose at the community by not attending a recent forum on the police cameras.

OB Town Council Gives “Qualified” Support to Cameras “For One Year”

By John Lawrence

Amy Goodman did a recent show about the refugees living in a camp in Calais, France. She walked around the camp interviewing several refugees all of whom spoke good English.

Most of these people were sleeping in tents similar to the ones you see on the sidewalks of San Diego. Some had built simple structures.

As she walked around, I began to notice some facilities that they had there which are nowhere to be found for the San Diego homeless. First I noticed a dumpster. There’s no dumpster for San Diego’s homeless. The trash just gets left on the street.

By Perry Vasquez

The U.S./Mexico border is falling apart. Like Chipotle Swiss cheese, it is shot through with gaps, holes, lacunae, erasures, and stretches of emptiness. The border exists—but at times its existence seems to collapse beneath the weight of its own sovereignty. How does the border both exist and not exist at the same time? How does it manage to appear in strategic locations and disappear in non-strategic ones? Why do we think of the border as having a fixed and permanent national identity instead of a contingent and temporary one?

By Vera Sanchez and Sunny Rey

December 25th, 2015 is the day we found Craig Miller dead. Most people celebrate Christmas by unwrapping surprises, with the smell of coffee, the sound of giggles, and the warmth of a crowded house. We were just two volunteers wanting to pass out sleeping bags; the season slump was to be uplifted in the streets of Ocean Beach.

An organization, The Urban Street Angels, had a goal of reaching 800 local homeless in the community by gifting them with newly donated sleeping bags. As fate would have it, we received an outdated flyer with an old starting time of the event, consequently arriving two hours late to an event that had longed past.

Debate Continues on Whether SeaWorld Can Built Hotel on its Present Site

By B. Ross

The area for the old, Mission Bay landfill that CK cites, in the article written to refute the OB Rag’s estimate of its area, is not accurate. Besides, the estimates for the size of the landfill are based on aerial photographs from that era. The City destroyed the majority of the records related to the landfill, which makes it impossible to prove either analysis correct. The study of the dump site was undertaken in 2005, so why point to 2002 data?

The Reader, San Diego UT and other sources in 2006 showed an area that is bigger than what CK shows and smaller than the map from the OB Rag story.

2016 marks the 100th anniversary of 1916’s Ireland Easter Rising.

The following article originally appeared in the Fall 1985 issue of “the whole damn pie shop.” : San Diego’s quarterly of Alternative Opinion.

Portrait of an Irish Republican

By Michael Steinberg

“Life springs from death and from the graves of patriot men and women spring living nations“–Padraic Pearce, one of the leader’s of the 1916 Easter Rising executed by the British.

Ireland, August, 1985–Julie Doherty has just turned 23. She lives in Derry, a city of 50,000 in the British occupied north of Ireland. She is blessed with a bright face and jaunty personality that few would call less that beautiful. But she is cursed with a harsh existence and lives constantly in the shadow of death.